Brotherhood of the Wolf

Monday, April 17, 2006 »

In anticipation of Silent Hill later this week, today I watched director Christophe Gans's Brotherhood of the Wolf. Mainly I wanted an example of his previous work to get an idea of what to expect from his adaptation of what is probably my favorite horror game. After watching Brotherhood, I can say that Gans looks to be a great match for the series.

For the most part, the direction was transparent. Many scenes seemed to be shot to look like you just stumbled across people naturally going about their business, instead of everything looking like it had been painstakingly arranged for the camera. The movie had a very methodical feel to it, as if the camera was just catching the necessary action as it took place.

Speaking of action, it was during the fighting and other faster-paced scenes when it was easier to see Gans's involvement. Many of the fights featured quick, somewhat-disorienting cuts between angles, and occasionally some questionable use of slow-motion. While I don't know if I prefer that style for action movies, I imagine it'll work quite well for Silent Hill. (I'm imagining the camera jumping around a mob of nursemonsters, or the film dropping into slow-motion as Pyramid Head raises his giant knife.)

Another intriguing thing was the depiction of violence in Brotherhood. While it has quite a few gruesome scenes, they're never gratuitously gory. When Gans does show something particularly graphic, it's either a necessary part of the story or designed to elicit specific emotions in the viewer. With Silent Hill in mind, I saw this as a great sign. Based on descriptions of some particularly violent scenes in the movie, I was afraid that Silent Hill might turn into an excessive gorefest. But, after watching Brotherhood (as well as reading this excellent interview), I imagine any violence in the movie adaptation will have a similar purpose as it did in the games—namely, to perpetuate horror. (As they say, "the fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh.")

So, between that interview with Gans (and series producer/composer Akira Yamaoka1), where he reveals how surprisingly well he understands the series, and Brotherhood of the Wolf, I'm confident Silent Hill will do the series justice. Unfortunately, this means there's no way I'm going to go see it in a dark theater, but I'll figure something out.

Finally, here is a special Famous Actors! Brotherhood of the Wolf edition: Vincent Cassel, Mark Dacascos, and Monica Bellucci.

Supplemental link: Here's an interview with Silent Hill's screenwriter, Roger Avary. I'm mainly including it because he mentions the Dutch Goose.

1 Something else of note: I enjoyed that Brotherhood of the Wolf wasn't completely saturated with music the way many films tend to be these days. This makes me curious about how Silent Hill's score will turn out, since it was handled by Yamaoka himself. I'm hoping they didn't decide to skimp on the twangy guitar.